Serbia: ‘This is how the police and the smear campaign target the opposition’
Srdan Milivojevic, leader of the movement that overthrew Milosevic’s regime in 2000 and is now supporting the students who are taking on Vucic on Sunday 25 October, speaks out
History in Serbia? “I believe that, exactly 26 years on, it will happen again.” In 2000, Srdan Milivojevic was 35 and one of the leading members of Otpor! (Resistance!), the student and civil society movement that, on 5 October, overthrew Slobodan Milošević’s regime in what became known as the Bulldozer Revolution. Today, Milivojevic is the president of the Democratic Party (Demokratska stranka) of Serbia; since 2022, he has sat in the Belgrade Parliament, where he has been a staunch and unwavering opponent of Aleksandar Vučić’s regime; and he has withdrawn his party from the elections on Sunday 25th, with the aim of concentrating votes on the Serbian Students’ List and ousting a corrupt and illiberal government once and for all. Milivojević is the common thread that ideologically links the protests of 2000 with those of today. The students of that time are passing the baton to those of today.
What parallels are there between the revolution of that time and the change that students hope to bring about in Serbia with Sunday’s vote?
Let’s be clear from the outset: Milosevic was a war criminal, and half the world had imposed sanctions against him. He was persona non grata. That said, there are certain similarities. Both present themselves as patriots who want only the best for the nation, but beneath the surface they are two men keen to concentrate all power in their own hands. Vučić was already a cog, albeit a small one, within Milošević’s regime. For two years, from 1998 to 2000, he served as Minister of Information: the 1998 law muzzling the press bears his signature.
What scope for manoeuvre did he have in Parliament, from the opposition benches, against Vučić?
I served two terms as a Member of Parliament during Vucic’s presidency, and in all that time he turned up only three times. The members of the SNS, his Progressive Party, have stifled all debate, and as a result Parliament has been stripped of any real function. Ever since the canopy at Novi Sad station collapsed two years ago – an event that sparked the current student movement – we in the opposition have also decided to boycott Parliament, which has now been reduced to a mere sham.
